Thoughts on Early Childhood (written for my cooperative preschool parents, but true for all of those who are loving, living with or working with young children)
What can be hard for us when talking and thinking about early childhood (both education and parenting) is that because we don’t remember our own early childhoods, we assume that this time of life isn’t that important.
And yet, most of us feel in our hearts that this tender time is meaningful, that just because something becomes invisible (or not outwardly visible) doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter.
In fact, therapists have known that those early years form us irrevocably—that the trauma experienced in this stage of life will not be erased even as our memories fade. Similarly, the deep care and attachment we experience will have lasting effects.
The amazing thing now is that brain science has shown us this very same thing. What happens to us in early childhood both forms and changes our brains. Neural pathways are laid that we will reckon with throughout the rest of our lives.
I deeply believe that the work you are doing in your families and the work that we are doing in this community is incredibly important. We are laying the groundwork here for your children’s experiences of learning, of curiosity, of safety in the world around them, and of relationships with peers and loving adults.
So, when people tell me that they feel heartsick that all of the experiences that have considered so carefully as they raise their kids—exposures to people and places, late, late nights of comfort and care to sleepless and sick children, and so much more—I try to gently remind them that all of this is in there, inside the brains and bodies of their little children. There is no cause without effect—all that you do goes into their formation.
Instead, I say that early childhood is the very source of the rest of our lives, the template for our future experiences. We are doing hard and important work here at school and in our homes.
We will mess up and we will triumph, too. That is part of raising little humans. I personally can’t imagine more important, meaningful work!